Edward Blyth

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Edward Blyth (23 December 1810 – 27 December 1873) was an English zoologist and pharmacist. He was one of the founders of Indian zoology.

Blyth was born in London in 1810. In 1841 he travelled to India to become the curator of the museum of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. He set about updating the museum's catalogues, publishing a Catalogue of the Birds of the Asiatic Society in 1849. He was prevented from doing much fieldwork himself, but received and described bird specimens from Hume, Tickell, Swinhoe and others. He remained as curator until 1862, when ill-health forced his return to England. His The natural history of the Cranes was published in 1881.

Species bearing his name include Blyth's Hawk-eagle, Blyth's Reed Warbler, Southern Blyth's Leaf-Warbler and Blyth's Pipit.

Contents 1 Early life and work 2 On natural selection 3 Return from India 4 Other works 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Early life and work

Blyth was the son of a clothier and initially worked as a pharmacist but quit in 1837 to seek a living as an author and editor. He was offered the position of curator at the museum of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1841. He was so poor that he needed an advance of 100 pounds to make the trip to Calcutta. In India, Blyth was poorly paid (the Asiatic Society did not expect to find a European curator for the salary that they could offer), with a salary of 300 pounds per year that was unchanged for twenty years and a house allowance of 4 pounds per month. He got married in 1854 and tried to supplement his income by writing under a pseudonym to the Indian Sporting Review as well as trading live animals between India and Britain catering to wealthy collectors both in Britain and India. In this venture he sought the collaboration of various eminent people including Charles Darwin and John Gould, both of whom declined these offers.^[1]

Although a curator of a museum with multiple areas of work, he contributed largely to ornithology, often forsaking other areas of work. His employers were unhappy in 1847 at his failure to produce a catalogue of the museum. There were also factions in the Asiatic Society that were against Blyth and he complained to Richard Owen in 1848:

They intrigue in every way to get rid of me; accuse me of being an Ornithologist, and that the society did not want an ornithologist...I could astonish you by various statements of what I have to put up with but forbear.

—quoted in Brandon-Jones, 1997

His work on ornithology led him to be recognized as the father of Indian ornithology a title which was later transferred to Allan Octavian Hume.^[2]

Mr. Blyth, who is rightly called the Father of Indian Ornithology, "was by far the most important contributor to our knowledge of the Birds of India." Seated, as the head of the Asiatic Society's Museum, he, by intercourse and through correspondents, not only formed a large collection for the Society, but also enriched the pages of the Society's Journal with the results of his study, and thus did more for the extension of the study of the Avifauna of India than all previous writers. There can be no work on Indian Ornithology without reference to his voluminous contributions. ...

—James Murray

[edit] On natural selection

Edward Blyth wrote three articles on variation, discussing the effects of artificial selection and describing the process in nature (later called natural selection) as restoring organisms in the wild to their archetype (rather than forming new species). However, he never actually used the term "natural selection".^[3] These articles were published in The Magazine of Natural History between 1835 and 1837.^[4][5]

In February 1855 Charles Darwin, seeking information on variations in domesticated animals of various countries, wrote to Blyth who was "much gratified to learn that a subject in which I have always felt the deepest interest has been undertaken by one so competent to treat of it in all its bearings" and they corresponded on the subject.^[6] Blyth was among the first to recognise the significance of Wallace's paper "On the Law which has regulated the introduction of Species" and brought it to the notice of Darwin in a letter written in Calcutta on December 8, 1855:

"What think you of a1Wallace's paper in the Ann. M. N. H. ? Good! Upon the whole! ... Wallace has, I think, put the matter well; and according to his theory, the various domestic races of animals have been fairly developed into species. ... A trump of a fact for friend Wallace to have hit upon!" ^[7]

There can be no doubt of Darwin's regard for Edward Blyth: in the first chapter of On the Origin of Species he wrote "Mr. Blyth, whose opinion, from his large and varied stores of knowledge, I should value more than that of almost any one, ..." ^[8]

In a 1959 paper, Loren Eiseley claimed that "the leading tenets of Darwin's work – the struggle for existence, variation, natural selection and sexual selection – are all fully expressed in Blyth's paper of 1835".^[9][10] He also cited a number of rare words, similarities of phrasing, and the use of similar examples, which he regarded as evidence of Darwin's debt to Blyth. However, the subsequent discovery of Darwin's notebooks has "permitted the refutation of Eiseley's claims".^[11] Both Mayr and Darlington interpret Blyth's view of natural selection as maintaining the type:

"Blyth's theory was clearly one of elimination rather than selection. His principal concern is the maintenance of the perfection of the type. Blyth's thinking is decidedly that of a natural theologian..." ^[11]

"What was the work of Blyth?... Blyth attempts to show how [selection and the struggle for existence] can be used to explain, not the change of species (which he was anxious to discredit) but the stability of species in which he ardently believed." ^[12]

In this common negative formulation, natural selection only preserves a constant and unchangeable type or essence of created form, by eliminating extreme variations or unfit individuals which deviate too far from this essence. The formulation goes back to the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles, and the theologian William Paley set out a variation on this argument in 1802, in order to refute (in later pages) a claim that there had been a wide range of initial creations, with less viable forms being eliminated by nature to leave the modern range of species:^[13][14]

"The hypothesis teaches, that every possible variety of being hath, at one time or other, found its way into existence (by what cause or in what manner is not said), and that those which were badly formed, perished; but how or why those which survived should be cast, as we see that plants and animals are cast, into regular classes, the hypothesis does not explain; or rather the hypothesis is inconsistent with this phænomenon." ^[15]

The way in which Blyth himself argued about the modification of species can be illustrated by an extract concerning the adaptations of carnivorous mammals:

"However reciprocal...may appear the relations of the preyer and the prey, a little reflection on the observed facts suffices to intimate that the relative adaptations of the former only are special, those of latter being comparatively vague and general; indicating that there having been a superabundance which might serve as nutriment, in the first instance, and which, in many cases, was unattainable by ordinary means, particular species have therefore been so organized (that is to say, modified upon some more or less general type or plan of structure,) to avail themselves of the supply." ^[16]

Stephen Jay Gould writes that Eiseley had made the error of failing to realize that natural selection was a common idea among biologists of the time, as part of the argument for created permanency of species. It was seen as eliminating the unfit, while some other cause created well fitted species. Darwin introduced the idea that natural selection was creative in giving direction to a process of evolutionary change in which small hereditary changes accumulate.^[13] John Wilkins indicates that Blyth considered that species had "invariable distinctions" establishing their integrity, and so was opposed to transmutation of species as if it occurred, "we should seek in vain for those constant and invariable distinctions which are found to obtain". Darwin held the opposite view, and did not read Blyth until after formulating his own theory. In contrast to Eiseley's claim that Blyth felt that Darwin had plagiarised the idea, Blyth remained a valued correspondent of Darwin's after the idea was published, and became a strong friend and supporter of Darwinian evolution.^[14]

[edit] Return from India

Blyth returned to London on March 9, 1863 to recover from ill health. He was to get a full year's pay for this sick leave. He however had to borrow money from John Henry Gurney and continued his animal trade. Around 1865 he began to help Thomas C. Jerdon in the writing of the Birds of India but had a mental breakdown and had to be kept in a private asylum. He was a corresponding member of the Zoological Society and was elected an extraordinary member of the British Ornithological Union, nominated by Alfred Newton. He later took to drinking and was convicted for assaulting a cab driver. He died of heart disease in December 1873.^[1]

[edit] Other works

Blyth edited the section on 'Mammalia, Birds, and Reptiles' in the English edition of Cuvier's Animal Kingdom published in 1840, inserting many observations, corrections, and references of his own. His Catalogue of the mammals and birds of Burma was published posthumously in 1875.^{[1] [17]}

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Archives of Charles Darwin and his correspondence with Blyth